From flying cars to intelligent robot horses, the plot behind Xpeng's technological muscle display

Behind the cool technological products are some basic pursuits that have remained unchanged since the concept of the enterprise was born.

"In the future, Xiaopeng Motors will also enter the high-end car market in the 500,000 to 1 million yuan range through flying cars!"

He Xiaopeng has been very proud recently. From the initial pie in the sky to the reality, the Xiaopeng P5, which has become the "Xiaopeng Motors Model 3", is now at the important stage of mass production and delivery as planned. However, with the rapid development of the smart car business, He Xiaopeng did not forget to do some "fancy work" in the Xiaopeng Motors Q2 earnings conference call released not long ago, and promoted the flying car of his Xiaopeng Huitian.

Of course, if you want to keep the company as a hot topic, a "flying car" alone is far from enough.

On September 6, Xiaopeng Motors’ official account pushed a poster - [Intelligent New Species] is about to be presented with high energy, announcing that a new product will be launched the next day (September 7).

Based on the shadow in front of the Xiaopeng Motors logo in the poster, everyone guessed for a whole night and the consensus was that Xiaopeng would most likely launch a four-legged robot product similar to Xiaomi's "Tiedan" or Boston's "Big Dog".

However, as Xiaopeng Motors unveiled the secret yesterday through its official account, the result was beyond everyone's expectations. Xiaopeng did launch a new concept robot product, but this is definitely not a "dog", but a "horse". Moreover, it is the kind that can be ridden!

01. Pengxing Intelligent "Little White Dragon"

First of all, it is particularly important to note that the producer of the robot horse is not Xiaopeng Motors, but a member of Xiaopeng's ecological chain - Shenzhen Pengxing Intelligent Research Co., Ltd.

According to Pengxing Intelligence, the intelligent robot horse product launched this time is the third-generation prototype of the entire series, with the internal code name "Little White Dragon".

In terms of product positioning, "Little White Dragon" is an intelligent robot (horse) for accompanying. Just as Musk boasted that Tesla Bot "integrates all the essence of Tesla" not long ago, Pengxing Intelligence also claims that "Little White Dragon" is also equipped with the same level of sensor array as Xiaopeng Motors, as well as a matching intelligent control system. Such a complete sensor system enables "Little White Dragon" to identify the external environment through cameras, laser radars, etc., and even distinguish objects in front of it, and build maps and plan paths based on the current environment. This makes this robot horse have advanced functions such as autonomous movement, target following and automatic obstacle avoidance.

Since the mechanical structure highly imitates the limb structure of a horse, the driving module of "Little White Dragon" has unique postures of the front legs such as "front knee and back elbow" and "straight knee walking", which are very similar to the movements of a foal. Especially when the system is in standby or stored for charging, it completely simulates the sleeping posture of a foal crawling on its knees.

Equipped with a high power density ratio powertrain unit independently developed by Xiaopeng's Pengxing Intelligent, the "Little White Dragon" achieves excellent balance and agility through a precise power drive model combined with AI technology. Not only can it walk freely like a real horse, but the power output has enough redundancy to fully carry a child and drive it around.

Since the "Little White Dragon" is equipped with a voice interaction interface and has face and voiceprint recognition functions, the operator can control it by giving commands through voice, gestures, etc. During the operation of the "Little White Dragon", its head display screen can also display a variety of expressions based on system feedback, interacting with its controller in a similar way to emotional communication.

In short, "Little White Dragon" is an intelligent robot product that integrates early childhood education, accompanying functions, and can also provide riding and playing functions. At a time when the term "intelligent new species" has been almost overused, at least this time it is worthy of the name. This is just as Xiaopeng's official definition of this product: we hope that (Little White Dragon) can become the first intelligent means of transportation for "Xiaopeng friends".

Although Xiaopeng did not give a specific launch date and product price when the "Little White Dragon" was announced, this cool smart robot, with its originality and cutting-edge product positioning, still aroused a great social response. In the comment area, many "Peng friends" gave it all kinds of praise, and "I must buy one for my child" was also one of the most liked replies.

As we all know, smart early childhood education, accompanying equipment, and children's smart toys are a market that has not yet been fully developed, but has extraordinary potential. As far as the performance and market response currently announced are concerned, high-end equipment such as "Little White Dragon" can be expected to have a promising market prospect once the product can be truly launched, as long as the price is not too outrageous. As the saying goes, "Pengxing Intelligent Robot Horse is not only an intelligent robot product, but also a gift from us to the future."

Since smart cars and smart robots have certain commonalities in underlying technologies, both new car manufacturers and technology companies trying to promote change in the automotive industry are happy to launch such products to expand their product matrix and thus expand the scenarios and systems of their entire ecological applications.

By "showing off" such high-tech robot products to the public and investors, companies can achieve twice the result with half the effort in improving their presence and penetration in all aspects.

Of course, if you want to keep the media's attention, it is far from enough to rely on an intelligent early childhood education robot that mainly exists in renderings. Here we must also talk about another link in Xiaopeng's intelligent travel matrix, Xiaopeng Huitian's flying car.

02. Xiaopeng Huitian "flying car"

Unlike the "Little White Dragon" which made a big splash, Xiaopeng Huitian did not hide anything in the process of developing its flying car. It maintained a "big voice" attitude throughout the process.

As early as five months ago during the Shanghai Auto Show, Xiaopeng Huitian had brought its latest product at the time, the fourth-generation intelligent electric manned aircraft "Traveler X1", to the Xiaopeng Motors booth. During the auto show, Xiaopeng Huitian not only held a press conference on the stage of Xiaopeng Motors to officially announce the then latest Traveler X1, but also publicly released its technology iteration roadmap, showing the public its research and development process since 2017.

The Traveler X1 prototype, displayed in a corner of the Xpeng Motors booth, was also regarded as a famous check-in spot by many auto show visitors.

Three months later, in mid-July, Xiaopeng Huitian officially announced its fifth-generation manned aircraft product: Traveler X2.

Compared with the previous generation Voyager X1, which was like a flying motorcycle, the Voyager X2 is much larger in size, just like an A0-class car. And this time, the X2 has two seats in the cabin.

According to official data, the empty weight of the Voyager X2 is about 360kg, the maximum take-off weight is 560kg, and the maximum payload is about 200kg. Compared with the X1, which requires passengers to operate autonomously, the Voyager X2 has the function of automatically planning the flight route. The flight path can be set before take-off, and passengers on board will not interfere with the flight mission throughout the entire process. To this end, the Voyager X2 is equipped with multiple sensors on the external fuselage, which can not only effectively monitor the route, but also perceive the surrounding environment without blind spots. In the event of an unexpected situation, the onboard computer can operate the aircraft to perform an autonomous return landing.

The power for the Voyager X2 is provided by eight rotor motors arranged in pairs in an X layout. Since the power battery packs that provide power are installed in a dispersed manner, it has a good performance in terms of safety. According to the information, the flight time of the Voyager X2 is about 35 minutes, but Xiaopeng Huitian did not specify under what load the flight time is achieved. According to the maximum flight speed of 130km per hour, the maximum single-time range of the Voyager X2 is about 75km.

Finally, it is important to emphasize that although there have been many similar multi-axis flying cars so far, the safety of the Voyager X2 is unprecedented. In order to ensure the safety of passengers, Xiaopeng Huitian even equipped it with a full-machine parachute. In the event of an accident, the parachute can be ejected immediately to ensure the absolute safety of the people on board.

After talking about the specific products, it is time to talk about the background and strategy. From the concept to the product, flying cars are not new. Since Karl Benz invented the first motor vehicle in 1886, countless inventors and designers have conceived various flying cars that can not only speed on the road, but also fly over obstacles such as rivers and mountains.

Since the American aviation pioneer Curtis invented the first flying car, the Autoplane, in 1917, after a century of development, there have been many successful cases of flying cars that are a combination of cars and airplanes, such as the famous Transition, a dual-purpose flying car for land and air, developed by Terrafugia (acquired by Geely Auto in 2017).

▲Terrafugia's "Leap" is a flying car that has already achieved practical elements